TV Commentary: ‘iZombie’ Season 1

As a mediocre show, I would consider iZombie the walking dead. The show recently concluded its first season and from what I’ve seen, I don’t think I’ll be tuning in for its second.

In a drastic turn of events, medical resident, Liv Moore (Rose McIver from The Lovely Bones), turns into a zombie and suddenly has cravings for brains. Working in the morgue, she eats the brains of the dead and with that, comes the memories and personalities of the deceased. She uses that to help the police solve cases on a weekly basis. The episodes are okay, nothing cringe-worthy, but definitely nothing great.

SPOILERS AHEAD.

THE LOVE STORY

Bradley James as Lowell. Photo: Colin Bradley Tumblr

My major qualm is that the creative team decided to continue to pair Liv with her ex-fiance, Major (Robert Buckley from One Tree Hill), rather than fellow zombie, Lowell (Bradley James of Arthur). James and McIver’s storyline was more epic. If anyone should know about epic love stories, it’s creator Rob Thomas (Veronica Mars), which makes this even more disappointing.

On Veronica Mars, the original love story was between Veronica and Duncan, but he later changed it to the more epic Veronica and Logan, “spanning years and continents. Lives ruined, bloodshed. EPIC.” I don’t see why he couldn’t have done the same with iZombie. (Apparently, James landed another TV series, but it’s unclear whether that was a result of iZombie killing him off the show. If they hadn’t done that — who knows — he might have stuck around on iZombie.)

In fact, McIver and James had more on-screen chemistry than McIver and Buckley. Also, James is clearly the better actor (though I won’t put it past Buckley to possibly be Oscar-worthy someday. I made that mistake before. Case in point: Anne Hathaway from her Princess Diaries days.)

THE ACTORS
The only other actor who pops on screen is Rahul Kohli, who plays Liv’s friend. I’m a fan of David Anders, who plays the villain, but he has yet to live up to his Alias character. Everyone else is bland. The casting director/s may have been pressed for time, but it would have been worth their while to have conducted more exhaustive searches.

Actor Malcolm Goodwin is particularly problematic as he plays one of the main characters and brings nothing to the role. It could also be the way his character his written — without personality. In the future, an interesting backstory might help. Might.

As the lead, McIver is passable in terms of likability. It doesn’t help matters that McIver’s character’s decisions in the season finale were very annoying. For instance, ever since Blaine killed Lowell, she’s been more determined than ever to kill Blaine and she has several opportunities to do so in the finale, but she still doesn’t do it. See? Annoying.

Furthermore, as far as I can tell, she hasn’t inspired any cult-like fandom like Kristen Bell did on Veronica Mars. The comparison is inevitable. The whole reason why the CW greenlit iZombie is they wanted a female-led series to be the next Veronica Mars or Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Unless the following seasons are a complete turnaround, iZombie won’t be joining those iconic female-driven hits in the TV history books.